Chase trying to circumvent new overdraft laws already

According to this very enlightening post on the Complaints Board, one way Chase is trying to circumvent the requirement in the Credit Card Reform Act of 2009 that automatic overdraft protection only be applied to accounts that specifically opt-in is to create a card that automatically enters the pin numbers instead of the customer doing it themselves, which technically circumvents the requirement that overdraft protection.  They are enticing customers to use this new card by changing their rewards program so that it only applies to this new card type.

Apparently their letters to account holders trying to scare them into signing up for overdraft protection aren’t working well enough.

Chase win’s award from plain language group

Chase was recently awarded a WonderMark award (as in “I wonder what they were thinking”) for the lack of clarity in their recent letter to account holders announcing changes to their accounts.   For example:

If we do not receive any Minimum Payment within 60 days of the date and time due, the Penalty APR will be applicable to all otustanding balances and future transactions on your Account. However, if we receive six consecutive Minimum Payments by the date and time due beginning with the first payment due after the effective date of the increase, we will stop applying the Penatly APR to transactions that occured prior to or within 14 days after we provide you notice of the APR increase. For balances that we stop applying the Penatly APR to, we will apply APRs that would have applied at that date if the Penalty APR had never been applicable.

Clearly they are still playing games trying to deceive customers.

Chase warns investors of borrowers walking away from their homes

Apparently Chase’s loan portfolio continues to sour and they recently warned investors of a substantial risk from borrowers walking away from their homes and their debt with Chase.   This includes homeowners that can still afford their payments but are walking away in so called strategic defaults because they owe much more than the value of their home.

Good luck with that Chase.

Chase, other big banks face debit fee limits from bill amendments

There are proposed amendments to the financial services overhaul bill presently making its way through Congress that would limit how much large banks (small banks are specifically exempt) could charge for debit card transactions.  The main beneficiaries of the amendments would be retailers.

Update 5/24/10:  Here is an open letter from the amendment’s sponsor Dick Durbin as published in the Wall Street Journal that talks about debit fees:

Regarding your editorial “The Reduced Credit Act” (May 20): You should understand how Visa and MasterCard have rigged the debit interchange system to favor big banks at the expense of small merchants and consumers, and why the amendment I successfully offered in the Senate is needed to help small businesses stay afloat.

Visa and MasterCard control 80% of the debit card market and require merchants to pay up to 2% of every debit-card sale they make to the card-issuing bank as an interchange fee. Because of these fees, businesses get shortchanged on every sale and must make up the loss by raising prices or cutting back on other costs like hiring.

You say that merchants can shop around at banks for lower interchange rates. But Visa and MasterCard set interchange rates for all banks in their networks, so every bank receives the same interchange rate regardless of how efficiently a bank conducts transactions or avoids fraud.

Visa and MasterCard do not allow banks to compete with one another or negotiate with merchants over interchange rates. Rates stay high as a result of this price-fixing and lack of competition, which brings more revenue to the big banks but comes out of the bottom line of merchants across America.

My amendment will require that debit interchange fees be reasonable and proportional to actual processing costs.

While your editorial argues that the Federal Reserve should be able to consider bank operating and antifraud costs in setting fees, the current availability of guaranteed interchange revenue—at a level fixed by Visa and MasterCard—reduces banks’ incentive to manage those costs efficiently. You need to decide: Do you support competition or big bank oligopoly?

Update 6/5/10:  I received a letter by my credit union urging me to contact my elected representatives and ask them not to support this amendment.  Their argument against this amendment is that it will create an atmosphere where retailers my choose to reject certain cards issued by certain banks (i.e. the smaller banks that are exempt from having their interchange fees mandated at a lower rate) because certain cards will carry higher interchange fees.  They claim that the interchange fees allow them to offer the good value of services that they do.

Honestly, I am torn on this issue.  While big banks are more likely to try to bilk customers of fees across the board on everything, it is very likely that small banks and credit unions selectively apply fees in such a way that they believe offers the most value to their customers, without charging them too much.  I can see how this could hurt their business.

Interestingly enough, this recent article about big banks and small banks and credit unions uniting to fight this legislation doesn’t talk at all about why small banks oppose it, only that they must be misinformed if they think it will hurt them.

What to do?

Hey Chase, what kind of credit card do I have?

This thread over at myFICO is very funny.  Basically, it is a bunch of former WaMu customers wondering what type of Chase credit card their former WaMu card was converted into.  Apparently, when logging into Chase online, there is no indication what type of card it is, and none of the customers received a notice of what kind of card they were being converted into.  One customer reports he WAS able to figure out what type of card he has but the type of card has been changed twice since the WaMu takeover.

Little help Chase?

Chase can’t figure out time zones (and they cancel your accounts at will)

I’ve often heard people from New York City claim that it is the center of the universe, and perhaps that is the thinking behind a Chase customer service rep from NYC calling someone at 6am in another time one, or perhaps, like many other things with them, they just can’t figure time zones out.

Were it that a 6am call was the only infraction, but it is not so.  Chase apparently closed all the customers checking accounts when he wouldn’t switch to a higher fee version.

Chase will start your trial loan mod even if you don’t say yes

A Chase mortgage holder goes through a long process of applying for a trial loan modification which takes forever (as expected) and involves sending and resending and calling and calling again, and is finally approved with a not so stellar loan modification.  But she decides to decline it as she has heard all the stories about people paying trial loan modification payments for a long time only to be denied in the end and then Chase demands a balloon payment of the cumulative difference between the trial and regular payments or they will foreclose, or they just foreclose anyways.

But even though Chase didn’t get the actual Ok from her, they went ahead and started the trial loan modification anyways.

Seriously, do they have a bunch of monkeys working in the back room?

Chase first US bank with an iPad app?

According to this blog, Chase is the first bank with a native iPad app, basically a stretched out version of its iPhone banking app.

I suppose this would be something that Chase actually did right, although I haven’t tried either their iPad or iPhone app, because I don’t bank at Chase anymore, so I can’t say whether their apps are actually worthwhile.

So what was up with their gift buying iPhone app?